Chest
Clinical Investigations in Critical CareA Randomized Clinical Trial Comparing an Extended-Use Hygroscopic Condenser Humidifier With Heated-Water Humidification in Mechanically Ventilated Patients
Section snippets
Study Location and Patients
The study was conducted at a university-affiliated teaching hospital: Barnes-Jewish Hospital (900 beds). During a 4-month period (October 1996 to January 1997), all patients receiving mechanical ventilation in the medical and surgical ICUs of this hospital were potentially eligible for this investigation. Patients were entered into the investigation if they were older than 17 years and required mechanical ventilation while in the ICU setting. Patients were excluded if they had transferred from
Patients
Three hundred twenty-two consecutive patients requiring mechanical ventilation in the medical and surgical ICUs were enrolled into the study. Nine patients were randomized on two different occasions (their second study admissions were excluded) and three patients were transferred from outside hospitals while receiving mechanical ventilation. Therefore, 310 patients were analyzed, of whom 163 (52.6%) received humidification with an extended-use HCH and 147 (47.4%) received heated-water
Discussion
We found that providing initial humidification to mechanically ventilated patients with an extended-use HCH was safe and more cost-effective compared with providing initial humidification with a heated-water system. The overall rates of ventilator-associated pneumonia and the episodes of ventilator-associated pneumonia per 1,000 ventilator-days were similar between our two study groups (Table 5). Additionally, hospital mortality, deaths directly attributed to ventilator-associated pneumonia,
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This research was supported in part by an educational grant from Nellcor Puritan-Bennett.
revision accepted August 25.